


Kit-Kats

by Rosie447



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study-ish, Episode: s01e08 The Upside Down, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie447/pseuds/Rosie447
Summary: “There’s one for all of us.”“Yeah, now we don’t have to worry about splitting the last one,” Lucas had said. “We’ve got the ideal group number.”While waiting for Will to wake up, Dustin reflects on his friend group and candy that breaks into four even pieces.
Relationships: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44





	Kit-Kats

The lights in the hospital reminded Dustin of the ones above the middle school cafeteria; the same bleached-out florescent look, complete with the corpses of dead flies trapped within. He glanced back at Mike and Lucas, none of whom had spoken in several minutes. The prognosis for Will was good, according to Mrs. Byers, who’d half-collapsed into Jonathan when speaking with the doctor. Dustin felt like he should be screaming, punching his fist into the air in triumph that his friend was still there, despite all odds. In any other circumstances, he would be.

But it seemed like the same stroke that had given them Will back had chosen to take El as payment. As if it wasn’t possible for them to keep the both of them. And so he felt weird and hollow, struck by the unfairness of it all because it wasn’t supposed to work that way. Because Will and El couldn’t just be exchanged for each other like pieces on a game board, a simple switch of one soft-spoken brunette for another. 

(They’d silently agreed to swallow the strange, pressing absence between them for the time being because the last thing Will needed when he woke up was friends who didn’t look positively thrilled to see him.)

Dustin’s throat felt dry, and his stomach growled. 

He remembered when his Dad left, that his mother had made cookies for him, every single day for a month. After a while, he’d gotten sick of them – imagine getting sick of _chocolate chip cookies –_ but he’d eaten them anyway. Because they weren't even really _for_ eating, they were just her way of trying to say _you are still loved._ So he’d packed several baggies full and brought them to his first day of fourth grade, and offered the extras to any of the kids who circled into his orbit. The first had been a boy with a Star Wars shirt who invited Dustin to sit with him and his friends. _Mike._

Dustin looked at him and Lucas, staring forwards with the same confused combination of loss and hope that he felt, and suddenly chocolate seemed like a good idea.

He slid off of his chair and headed down the hallway to the vending machines, squeezed just beyond the reception desk, by the bathrooms. He had one dollar bill, which meant they’d have to share, but he imagined the sentiment was more important than the actual quantity of food. They had kit-kat bars, which he considered for a moment. There was something nice about a candy that broke perfectly into four parts. Will had brought one to lunch one day back in fourth grade when Dustin had just joined the friend group. He’d broken it up evenly and passed the pieces out, grinning.

(“There’s one for all of us.”

“Yeah, now we don’t have to worry about splitting the last one,” Lucas had said. “We’ve got the ideal group number.”)

Dustin had almost punched the button when he realized that, with Will still in the hospital bed, beyond their reach, they only had three. And then he imagined the final piece just sitting there on the table while they all thought _you know who could have eaten this, and probably never even got to have a kit-kat ever in her life?_

He’d grab M&Ms instead. 

Swallowing, he smoothed his dollar bill and stuck it in the machine. It whirred for a moment before spitting the dollar back out. Dustin glared at the machine and tried again with the same results.

And it was really, really stupid, but somehow in the past few minutes, he’d become far too invested in the idea of bringing candy back to his friends as a gesture of support. As a way of trying to help maybe make one tiny thing okay in a sea of not-okay things that he didn’t know how to deal with. But apparently, he couldn’t do that. Apparently, his dollar wasn’t good enough. And he felt his eyes well up slightly and the thought and he blinked through tears of frustration because it wasn’t _right_ and it wasn’t _fair_ and it was _stupid_ to care so much about getting chocolate from a stupid snack machine when Will was unconscious in a hospital bed just down the hallway and El was _gone_.

“Trouble with the vending machine?”

He hadn’t even noticed Steve Harrington approaching. _That_ Steve Harrington. The Steve Harrington who was a _douchebag_ , and a _mouthbreather_ , and whose face was still swollen because apparently, he’d provoked Jonathan Byers (who sometimes took them all out for ice cream and never, ever so much as raised his voice, _even_ when they spilled rocky road all over the leather seats of his car) into a fight. Dustin folded his arms over his chest tightly, trying to pretend that he hadn’t been brought near tears by a crumpled dollar bill.

“It won’t take my dollar.”

There was a beat of silence as Steve fumbled for a moment before pulling a wallet out of his pocket, and holding out a crisp five to Dustin. 

“See if this works.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks.”

Steve shrugged. Dustin offered him the dollar he was holding, but he shook his head.

“Keep the change. You can grab me a Twizzlers and we’ll call it even.”

“Okay, sure.”

He punched a Twizzlers and the M&Ms into the machine, and, considering the change still left, added a granola bar, a package of crackers, and two more things of M&Ms. He still had enough for one more candy. Before he could really think about it, he hit the button for the kit-kat. If he kept it in his pocket, then no one would even see it until Will woke up, and then they could all split it. 

(If Will was allowed to eat when he woke up. But he felt like the sentiment still worked, even if he wasn’t.)

He stuffed most of the snacks into his pockets and returned to the waiting room, where Steve was seated next to a sleeping Mr. Wheeler (a position that Dustin did not envy in the slightest, especially with the latter’s head teetering closer and closer to his shoulder).

“Here.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, like he hadn’t paid for it, and then some.

“No problem.” There was a brief and very uncomfortable pause. “I’m Dustin.”

“I’m Steve.” Like Dustin didn’t _know._ “It’s um, nice to meet you.”

“Yeah. You too.”

And maybe it was. 

Dustin returned to his friends and spread the newly acquired snacks across the table between them. 

“For sustenance.”

_You are still loved._

Lucas nodded and poured a bunch of M&Ms into his hand before stuffing them all in his mouth at once. Dustin reached for one of the other packages and winced as the kit-kat bar slipped out of his jacket and onto the floor with a crinkle of plastic. Mike’s eyes came to rest on it, and Dustin regretted getting it until he picked it up and set it aside on the counter.

“We’ll save it,” Mike said. “Until Will wakes up.”

Lucas made a noise of agreement through a mouthful of chocolate. 

The rest of the candy was long gone by the time they were invited in to see Will.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any and all feedback is appreciated :) 
> 
> Feel free to chat with me on Tumblr, @itsthenovelteafactor


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